The Imagine Neighborhood

Hey there, friends! It’s me, Count Vacula, with a fresh No Filter just for you! I’m really happy because this week you get to meet Lauren Ashley Smith . She’s a television writer and producer, and in fact, Lauren was the first-ever female African American head writer of a sketch comedy TV show! She’s smart and funny, and best of all, she’s very kind. When you’re trying to make a new friend, it’s h...

If you’ve had envy, you know it doesn’t feel very nice. And in today’s episode, Alakazambra really wants to stop feeling envious of her friend, Barbara Cadabara. It all begins when Barbara gets chosen as Wizard of the Year by Merlin Monthly magazine, and instead of feeling happy for her friend’s success, Alakazambra gets upset!  She tries using magic to make her envy go away, but when the spell ac...

Hello, listeners!  This week we’re delighted to bring you—YOU!   You’ve been writing in all year with really thoughtful questions for your friends in The Imagine Neighborhood™, and today we’re going to try to track everybody down and get the answers you’re looking for! Wondering about wizard powers, or musing over why Macho needs to know if things are macho? Curious why we confronted Rick Fryer in...

It’s me, Count Vacula, sharing my newest No Filter—and my newest friend—with you! This week I got to meet Molly Birnbaum! If her name sounds familiar, it might be because she was in The Imagine Neighborhood™ just a few weeks ago, helping Macho and Mitsy understand each other better in “ The Gourmetborhood .” But today, she and I got to just hang out and make friends! Something Molly and I have in...

Doing interesting things uses up a lot of our attention, and that’s okay—but it’s important to keep checking in on ourselves, because what our body is feeling can change how we feel! And if we let ourselves get too tired, or too hungry, or we wait too long to go to the bathroom, we can start to feel bad, or sad, and we can spoil our own fun. In today’s episode, Macho is doing a very interesting th...

It’s me, your good pal Count Vacula—bringing you another awesome new friend on another awesome No Filter! This week I get to introduce you to the amazing Robin Slonina! She’s a multi-disciplinary artist, which means she makes lots of different kinds of art. Robin makes sculptures, and she paints giant murals on the sides of buildings, and she even paints on people! She’s painted people to look lik...

A MACHO SUPREME™ episode. This week, Molly and Mitsy from America's Test Kitchen's Mystery Recipe podcast are joining up with us to make a Neighborhood cooking show, and everyone’s getting involved! But when Macho Supreme and Mittsy get together to create some tasty treats, there's a spatula showdown about how to make a cake, and things in the kitchen get a little kooky! Is Macho Supreme macho eno...

Hello again, friends! It's me—Count Vacula, back with a brand-new episode of No Filter with Count Vacula! This week, my guest is the very friendly, talented, and fun Tom Toro , who has one of the coolest jobs I’ve ever heard of. Tom is a cartoonist, which means his job is to draw! How great is that?  Your grown-ups may recognize Tom’s name because he draws a lot of cartoons for a magazine called T...

It's awesome when we can share the things we enjoy with other people! But it’s not so awesome when the person doing the teaching isn’t being patient or laughs when we make mistakes. It can feel hurtful and frustrating, and it definitely takes the fun out of playing together. This week, Scotty and Vac are over at Preston Changeo’s house, learning Bozelba—the most popular board game in the wizard wo...

Do you remember the episode called “ Food Fight ”? Well, recently we had a chance to get on stage and share that story in-person with a new group of friends at an event called SXSW EDU (pronounced “South by Southwest ee-dee-you”). It’s a big gathering in Texas where people from all over meet up to share the things they like—and we really like sharing stories about the Neighborhood! What was extra...

Oh hey, everybody, Count Vacula here! It’s great to see you again! This week I got to use my friend-making skills with a very interesting and talented person named Chris Ballew ! Chris does really cool drawings , but he’s mainly a musician. Your grown-up might know him from his band Presidents of the United States of America, or you and your family might have listened to one of the nineteen Caspar...

A DOCTOR APOCALYPSO™ episode. Doctor Apocalypso is about to compete in the Tour de Rancid, the greatest unicycle race in the world! But even though the racetrack is difficult, Doc hasn’t practiced at all. She’s confident her natural ability will be enough to win, but co-pilot Scotty isn’t so sure. He’s feeling worried—about the piranha pits, about the field of booger craters, and about how Doctor...

Hi, everybody! It's me—your pal, Count Vacula!  It’s been a long time since I got to share a new No Filter with Count Vacula with you, and I’m super excited for us to get back to practicing meeting new people and learning how to make friends. My guest this week is the congresswoman for Washington’s 10th District—Marilyn Strickland! Congresspeople are a very important part of our government. They’r...

Welcome to Part Two of our putrid parable about problem-solving, as we rejoin Scotty, Princess Donnasaurus, and Pete Twanger in the middle of dealing with myriad magical messes all over town—plus a fart tornado that’s still headed right for the Neighborhood! With so many things going wrong, it’s going to take every problem-solving approach that PD and Scotty know to get the Neighborhood sorted out...

This week, Scotty and Princess Donnasaurus will need a LOT of new ideas, because they have a LOT of problems to solve. First, there’s a dangerous (and very stinky) fart tornado headed right towards the Neighborhood! And second, there’s a new grown-up in town who isn’t very good at problem-solving. Pete Twanger thinks he can fix the fart tornado by throwing things at it with his “ptwanger” machine....

Hey, friends—it’s the last Monday of the year, so you know what THAT means, don’t you? . . . Yup! It’s Cardboard Boxing Day! Happy Cardboard Boxing Day, everybody! We hope your family is making the most of any boxes left over from the holidays, and we can’t wait to see photos of all your amazing cardboard creations! Today is also the day of our last episode for 2021, so we wanted to do something a...

‘Tis Cardboard Boxing Day Eve, and all through our ‘Hood,   Friends are being generous, kind, cheerful, and good.  With boxes all set to become cardboard creations To delight and amaze neighbors, pals, and relations. From Lava Avenue to Alakazambra’s place, Everyone’s got a bright holiday smile on their face. There's Doc! And the Cap'n! PD and Princess Dotty! Plus Music Man, Macho, and pals Vac an...

Hi, everyone! Guess what? . . . Vac’s back! I couldn’t wait for you to meet my newest friend, Aaron Horowitz! Aaron is kind, and smart, and fun, and he has the coolest job I ever heard of! Aaron makes robots! And not only robots—he makes robots who have empathy! And not only robots who have empathy—he makes robots who have empathy in order to help kids! His company is called Sproutel , and they ma...

Hey, everybody! It's me, your good pal, Count Vacula! This week my guest is Melly Victor—who is super cool, and is someone I already know and like a lot! One of the reasons Melly is so cool is that she’s part of the awesome creative team at The Imagine Neighborhood™, and another reason is that she has a great podcast of her own called Stoopkid Stories , and another reason is that she’s a really te...

It’s almost Friendsgiving in The Imagine Neighborhood™! Scotty and Vac have been working on their thank-you jar all year: every time they feel thankful, they put a penny into the jar. And every year on Friendsgiving, a mythical yeti collects everyone’s jars and donates the money to help the Neighborhood—unless Tantrumus Maximus gets his way . . . Get more at: IMAGINENEIGHBORHOOD.org Friend and fol...

Have you ever felt two things at the same time? Like, maybe you were excited for the first day of school, but also felt nervous about being in a new classroom. Or have you ever felt angry at a friend who you also really, really liked? When we have a bunch of feelings that seem to be the opposite of each other, it can be confusing—or even upsetting. Cap’n Marion sure knows how that feels. In this w...

Is Tantrumus Maximus the most evil billionaire hamster in the whole wide world? Yes. Yes he is. Does Tantrumus Maximus concoct the most evil billionaire hamster capers conceivable? Yes. Yes he does. And does this week’s episode have THE most evil billionaire hamster heinousness we’ve ever heard of (or, rather . . . NOT heard of)?! Yes. Yes it has! This week, evil billionaire hamster Tantrumus Maxi...

imagineNeighborhood.org/RadioFree If you think this week’s title looks familiar . . . you’re right! “Macho’s Shot” first came out in August, but we’ve been hearing that some of our listeners are feeling worried about getting their vaccine, so we thought it would be a good idea to bring this episode back for another look. If you’re also feeling uncertain about going to the doctor, we hope you’ll gi...

Hey, everybody! Count Vacula here, welcoming you to my newest No Filter! This week, my guest is comedian, movie star, writer, podcaster, and cat-lover Tig Notaro! She’s best known for doing stand-up, which is a kind of comedy show where a person gets up on stage and tells stories about themselves and shares what they think about things. It’s kind of like making friends with a whole room full of pe...

This summer, thanks to a generous grant from The Allstate Foundation, the team at The Imagine Neighborhood launched Teen Force!, a virtual summer fellowship that brought together high school students from across the country. Together with expert consultants and a team of our mentors, 15 teens with interests in storytelling, podcasting, and social-emotional learning crafted these five Teen Force! s...